Posts Tagged With: vacation

Paradise is parrot-coloured

Posted on May 14, 2017 by Mark

Paradise is here on Earth, brightly coloured and full of cats, butterflies and friendly parrots. Ladies and gentlemen – Key West!

Probably the most amazing holiday I’ve ever been on- heaven for a cat lover with a passion for old American houses. The food was excellent and the caribbean vibe was made all the more exciting by the wildlife wandering free in the streets. There were strutting cockerels and swaggering iguanas, a holiday of surprises and beautiful sunsets. It felt like being in an old movie with it’s waving palms and ceiling fans and there was many a sun-bleached wooden porch where I could spend my days lazing in the warm evening breeze.

Leaving was quite an emotional experience, but I’ll be back one day to play with Hemingway’s six-toed cats and sip some rum at sun down.

Categories: Cats, Photography, Travel, Vibe Monitor, Video | Tags: Ernest Hemingway, Island life, Key West, USA, vacation, wildlife, wooden houses | Leave a comment

The Garden of England

Posted on July 22, 2013 by Mark

There’s a reason it’s called ‘the garden of England’ – Kent is full of chocolate box villages. Driving through scenery like this is a slow process if you brake for photo opportunities.

Continue reading →

Categories: Photography, Travel, Vibe Monitor | Tags: cottage, England, English countryside, Faversham, holiday, Kent, nature, south, tradition, vacation | 8 Comments

California Dreaming

Posted on July 8, 2013 by Mark

California, England. It’s not where you expect to find a California, but there it is, clinging to the Norfolk cliffs, next to Scratby. We would tell our schoolfriends we went to California every year on vacation, slightly forgetting to mention it was 6000 miles to the right of the one in the States. And marginally less glamorous. Or hot. This is the Pleasure Beach in Great Yarmouth, the highlight of every childhood summer holiday.

Yours truly squinting in the sun. Some very lovely old beach huts here, next to the rackety old fun fair.

A relic from the 70s, when the world was high on Star Wars and the fair was a riot of screaming colour and noise.

The Pink Panther says it all, really, doesn’t he? Still here.

I’m saying goodbye to Scratby, driving off through the chocolate-box villages to Kent.

Episodes one, two and three are here ‘if you’re fond of sand dunes and salty air…’

Categories: Design, Photography, Random, Travel | Tags: beach hut, England, fun fair, Great Yarmouth, holiday, Mark Wallis, Norfolk, Scratby, Star Wars, The Pink Panther, vacation | 8 Comments

Beach Rain

Posted on July 5, 2013 by Mark

“Feel the rain like an English summer,

Hear the notes from a distant song.”

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Sometimes, when you’re stumbling along in wet sand, trying to take pictures of everything at once, a wonderful and rare mistake will become your best picture ever. Just make sure you say it was deliberate, and brush the sand off your clothes.

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Nothing calms the soul quite like a rainy beach, deck chairs flapping in the wind under a hide-and-seek sun.

Every morning at dawn, I sneak to the cliff edge to catch the sun rising. And every morning the famous Norfolk sunrise beats me to it. This is the closest I got…

See the start of this tale in The Time Travel Tourist, and episode two, Summer Salt.

Categories: Design, Photography, Random, Travel, Vibe Monitor | Tags: Beach, deck chairs, Great Yarmouth England, holiday, hut, Norfolk, Scratby, vacation | 10 Comments

Summer Salt

Posted on July 3, 2013 by Mark

My sunny memories of childhood holidays in Norfolk have blurred slightly, like the faded glamour of an English seaside village. I’m the Time Travel Tourist, powered by nostalgia, jaunting back to the sand dunes and salty air of 1970s Scratby. Days were spent on bright windy beaches, and at night we retired to our charming, creaky wooden cottages on the cliff top.

I found a derelict cottage with all the original features, and I’m dreaming of a day when I can renovate it…

The sea is loud and feisty, with mournful fog horns and Bouy bells in the night, magical sounds to my childhood self, and just as hypnotizing to me now.